


Then Dreams He of Another Benefice

by sphinxvictorian



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dreams, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-13
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphinxvictorian/pseuds/sphinxvictorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercutio meets the woman of his dreams, but she’s not what he was expecting…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then Dreams He of Another Benefice

“I have it and soundly, too! Your houses!”

The long lean figure, wounded, stumbled in the sunlight and was supported into the cool shade of the nearby fountain. Mercutio could feel the life ebbing from his body. “Now oblivion,” he thought, “now blackness, now whatever comes- -but no, I will not die. Why did he come between us? Silly lovesick boy, could he not see I would have won the fight?”

Blackness closed in around him, at first full of agitated voices, Romeo’s among them. The babble of voices dwindled down to one small voice, so high he could only just make out that it was calling his name.

“Mercutio, awake. Ope thine eyes and look upon me.” The voice was deepening and dropping into a woman’s pleasant alto.

Mercutio had assumed that his eyes were open but he tried, anyway.

He found himself in a woodland glade, unlike any he’d seen in Italy. It was full of oak and ash trees wound about with vines whose blossoms gave the air a heavy sweet scent. Mercutio felt neither hot nor cold; rather a pleasant easy sensation seemed to overtake him.

“There, you see,” the voice continued, disembodied still, to his right somewhere, “you are safe now. Turn, mortal, turn and look upon your savior.”

Mercutio turned and beheld a vision from his wildest dreams. Wild hair tangled with twigs and pale yellow primroses and cobwebs stood out around a pointed chin and nose, slanted cheekbones and large eyes, of an ever-changing hue. The face topped a lithe and slender figure, dressed in a transparent gown of cobweb and gossamer, ornamented with jewels and iridescent carapaces and other ornaments. A fine circlet of gold filigree encircled her brow and nestled in to the tendrils around her face.. He had no doubt as to who this beautiful lady was.

“Your majesty,” he intoned, sweeping a low bow, “How does my good Queen Mab?”

“Well, Mercutio, and you can save your charm. You may need it later. And so, will you not thank your savior?”

He narrowed his eyes a bit at that. “Savior, lady? How come you to be my savior, since I am, for all intents and purposes, dead?”

Mab threw back her head and gave a hearty laugh. “Dead, call you this? Do you think this heaven? And as to me, I suppose you have restored me to the angelic choir my people fell from millennia since? Nay, dear mortal, this is no heaven but the land of Faerie, where I and my sister and brother, Tania and Auberan, rule in splendor for all eternity.”

Faerie! He had read and dreamt of it so often, almost believing in its magic. His incredulous mind still balked at the present circumstance.

Mab came to him, taking his arm and turning him to see a splendid chariot of silver and gilt, drawn by two huge white beetles, their shells shining, reflecting the canopy of green trees above. She drew him to the chariot and impelled him inside. He stumbled slightly as Mab cracked her grasshopper whip and the beetles surged forward, feelers gracefully waving, pulling the chariot along the woodland path.

Mercutio was trying to convince himself this was another of the fevered dreams that he’d so often told Romeo and Benvolio of. After all, who ever heard of dying and, instead of heaven, hell or purgatory, arriving in this country of strange immoral and amoral beings. Surely, if it were possible, one of the learned Christian philosophers would have written of it, or there would have been a treatise by one of the humanist scholars his tutors had insisted he read.

“Come, dear mortal, you are struck quite dumb, it seems. Tell me what you meditate on, so quiet and still.” Mab’s eyes gleamed at him through the filtered sunlight of the wood.

“I am only thinking this must be another of those many dreams I have had of you and your people, majesty.”

A sly and very amused smile spread across Mab’s lips. “Mercutio, those were not dreams. Did you never wonder why you still would have twigs in your hair and your feet would be aching and sore from dancing all night to the faerie pipes?”

Mercutio was beginning to feel some alarm. Had he sold his soul unknowingly? Did Mab have some power over him because he had invoked her name so often, though almost always in jest?

Again he asked, though more urgently this time, “How did you mean that you are my savior this day, lady?”

Mab was silent for a moment, the sly smile continuing to curve that rosebud mouth. “I have rescued your soul from its certain destination. You know the place, where those of your religion go if they have transgressed but a little. That is where you would have gone had I not chosen to interfere.”

The chariot rolled on smoothly, while Mercutio’s brain reeled at the thought of having been plucked from Purgatory, only to be placed in this uncertain situation, where he could not predict his fate.

“But,” he asked, “for what reason did you interfere, majesty?”

“You intrigued me, that is all. Most of your kind see us as abominations, if they see us at all. You, in your ’dreams’ as you call them, were awed by us, you were reverent of our powers and our ancient ways. You are no Christian, to be purged and sent off to immortality in the heavens. No, your soul belongs with us, mortal.”

Mercutio looked ahead along the path to where a large hillock rose in a clearing, One side of the hillock, as he stared, melted away, revealing a palatial room with golden pillars and chandeliers of crystal and ruby and sapphire hanging from silvered beams.

He knew this room. He had danced many a night away, in his dreams, in this room. The dreams, which had blurred somewhat in his memory of late, suddenly came back sharply. He glanced wildly from the room to Mab who was bringing the chariot to a stop.

Underneath his gaze, she suddenly began to transform into the faerie maiden he’d danced with every night. The face rounded a little, the hair grew tamer, her figure became a little more boyish.

“Dalia---” he breathed, as she changed back into Mab.

“So you remember, Lord Mercutio? I am glad. Otherwise, saving you would have been a waste of my power.”

“You saved me for yourself?” Anger crept into his voice, as he realized how she had practiced on his soul.

Her mouth curled in another mocking smile, as she answered, “Of course, why else? You will be my lover and my consort for eternity; my Auberan, if you will. After all, why should Tania be the only one to have a consort? I am her equal in beauty and cunning---”

“No!” The word exploded from him, echoing in the silent clearing. “Please, your majesty, I do not want this. I want to fulfill my soul’s true destiny. If it is to be Purgatory, then so be it. You cannot hold me.”

He tried to step from the chariot on his side, but his foot met nothing but air. Looking down, he saw that the chariot was suddenly perched on a precipice. Mab was between him and solid ground. She stood there, tapping her whip handle against her skirts, her many-hued eyes flashing evilly.

“Ah, my lord Mercutio, I thought you were in love with your Dalia. You told her so, many nights behind one of those golden pillars, your fingers twined in her hair, your lips plying her with kisses. Is the word of a prince’s bastard brother worth so little? Perhaps you do belong in your Christian Purgatory, along with all the other men who’ve toyed with a young maiden’s affections.”

“And how many young men have you broken to your will with your lash of film?” Mercutio retorted, advancing a little way toward her, anger now taking a firm hold. “I will not be your next victim, your majesty. I will not become a hollow shell of myself for eternity.”

“Ah, then, you love another, I see. Who was Dalia a proxy for, my dear mortal? Some sweet Italian lady who would not have you?” Mercutio stared, stunned, at the knowing smirk on the queen’s face. “You do not answer? Perhaps you do not even know your own heart.”

“I love no one, no one,” he cried out in confusion. He had never allowed himself to love anyone or trust anyone; as the Prince’s bastard brother, he could not afford to.

Before his eyes, Mab transformed herself again. A pair of dark brown eyes gazed soulfully out under a fall of dusky curls atop a slim figure in a fancy doublet half-unlaced.

“Romeo!”

He fell to his knees, weeping with the recognition of the one person he had loved, the one person who tolerated his vulgar humor, his antic disposition, his fits of melancholy. He remembered that Romeo was always the one he longed to see every day, the only person he could ever say of himself that he was jealous about. Only Benvolio was admitted into their tight little circle of friendship, because in his own way he also worshipped Romeo. Romeo was the constant center of their attention, his moods, his thoughts, his entertainments. But Mercutio had never allowed himself to see how much he loved and desired his dearest friend. Mercutio’s true nature hid itself behind humor and whoring, keeping reality at a safe distance. Now this unearthly creature brought that reality uncomfortably near, forcing him to acknowledge the real reason he had been heading to Purgatory.

He reached out a hand to grasp Romeo’s sleeve, and his fingers closed on the slender arm of the queen. With amazing strength, she pulled him to his feet. Looking around he saw they were back at the hillock.

“Ah, well, poor Mercutio. I am afraid there is nothing I can do for you now.” She descended from the chariot, again impelling him to follow her. “I cannot reverse the glamour which has magicked you here. In Faerie you must stay. So really, you will simply have to get used to it.” She waved a nonchalant hand, and a faerie groom appeared from thin air to lead off the beetles and chariot.

“I will not.”

She turned back to him, a puzzled look on her face. “I am sorry, I am not quite sure I heard you aright.”

“I will not. I will not stay here. Not to see him, even after death, now that I have seen him again and learned the truth of my soul’s desire, it is too much.” He dropped to one knee, pleading this time to that inexorable face. “You must know a way out. You rule this land, you must be mistress of its secrets.”

He looked around then, and saw that all manner of faerie folk, the frightening and the ethereal, the beautiful and the ugly, had come to see this little drama unfold.

“Only some of its secrets, mortal. My sister and brother know the rest.” She held up an imperious hand to stop him speaking. “ And, no, it is no use to ask them, they will never refuse me anything I want. And I without doubt want you, my dear lord Mercutio.”

He stood again, shaking his head vehemently. “No, I cannot accept that. Someone must know,” he peered at the motley crowd, “either in this land or some other. I will not live an eternity without him.”

Mab gave an exasperated sigh.

“Oh very well, if you must be so obstinate. I was going to spare you this but see it you must.”

She led him to a nearby pool of slightly brackish water. With a crack of her whip, the water cleared and then became as cloudy as milk. On the surface, figures began to flicker.

They became more distinct and Mercutio’s heart jumped to see Romeo, sword drawn, staggering after that rat-catcher Tybalt. The scene switched to show Romeo running Tybalt through, then immediately repent and be dragged off by Benvolio to safety.

Mercutio was warmed by Romeo’s avenging his murder, but then his heart went cold again as the scene changed. Romeo lay with a child-woman, Capulet’s daughter Juliet, Tybalt’s cousin.

“His wife,” murmured Mab, spitefully.

“No,” Mercutio whispered.

The figures flickered again. Juliet was dead, Romeo was mourning her. Mercutio’s eyes brimmed with tears, seeing the pain on his dear love’s face. Then he watched in horror as Romeo produced a vial and raised it to his lips.

“No!” Mercutio shouted, diving for the pool to obliterate the image of Romeo dying with a kiss on the lips of that child.

Hands restrained him, gentle soothing hands, gentle soothing voices. Then just one voice.

“Mercutio, love, it’s one of your dreams again. Come, come, Romeo’s here now, tell me of this one, my star. You know they always ease if you tell me.”

Mercutio laid down again into the warm embrace of those slender arms. He could find no words to speak of this dream, not now.

A sly smile lurked on the unseen face of his lover as Mercutio laid his head on his chest. The smile faded as soon as it came, leaving only the soft mouth of Romeo de Montaggio and a stray cobweb or two on the sheet.


End file.
